I’ve been debating about how to celebrate National Poetry Month. I always do something on here to make the month special. I’ve written a poem a day. I’ve written and illustrated a haiku every day. This year I want to do something special because this year is special to me. It’s my first year I’ve actually had ambitions for my poetry.
I’ve been studying renga recently. It’s sort of an early form of slam poetry invented in Japan where poets would gather for a renga “party” and try to outdo each other with every verse. Haiku (and we all know I love haiku!) actually grew out of the renga format, which featured alternating verses of 17 and 14 syllables.
So I’ve decided to write a (sort of) renga over the course of April. Renga were normally written in honor of a celebration and, in a way, I’m celebrating a new beginning in my life in April. I think the title of the renga will be “Thawing”. Each verse will be illustrated. I will follow the format of alternating 17 and 14 syllables and at the end, I will (hopefully) have the first thirty pages of my next illustrated poetry book, Hypercreativity.
So join me tomorrow for verse 1. And we’ll see where we go from there.
The spring equinox actually slipped past me yesterday. I spent a lot of time outside, though, so I guess I celebrated by soaking up some of that spring sunshine.
I’ve felt spring coming for sometime for me. I’m thawing in many different ways. In the process, I wrote a poem that’s sort of a love poem, though it’s written to multiple different people. So not the steamy kind of love poetry. (Sorry, but maybe I’ll write some of that at some point, too.)
Anyway, I wanted to share it here. It’ll probably become part of my next book of illustrated poetry.
Poem and illustration copyright 2022 by Michelle Garren-Flye
It’s one of those days when I find myself reflecting on what my life is and what it has been and what I still hope it will be. You know those days. We all have one of those days. Sometimes we eat cake on them.
Plato said, “Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master, but from many.”
Lol. Plato can keep that particular sense of calm. I will take the freedom, though. The freedom to experience the passions that I’ve denied myself in order to fit in a bit more.
I’m experimenting with spoken word poetry (I’d love to write a rap, but I’m not musical enough), renga/linked haiku, and I’m returning to rhyming poetry (mostly, though my haiku doesn’t usually) because I like writing it even if it isn’t the current fashion. (Screw the fashion. I love the challenge of writing real, solid poetry with rhymes.)
These are all things that probably would not have happened if my life was what it was a year ago. So, yeah.
And still I can’t seem to forget the way it felt to be young, to know I could change the world, to feel the earth shake beneath my feet, tremble before the force of my youth!
That’s a lot of pressure.
Jonathan Swift said something that feels even more appropriate to my particular stage of life than Plato’s praise of old age. “No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
I’m getting older. I own my years and all that came with them. I do not wish to go back. I would not redo anything that has occurred.
But I’m not finished yet. Let the young have their go at changing the world, but I’m still here.
Poem and illustration copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye
It’s been a beat since my last update. Since then, I’ve spoken to a group of writers about my love of poetry and how it dropped me a rescue line during Covid. And I’ve had an explosion of creativity that has…
…brought me to a screeching halt.
How is that possible? When my brain is firing all its creative cylinders, how is it I can’t seem to create anything?
And it’s not totally true that I’m not creating. I am. I’m writing poetry and drawing and working on a book about my cat and gathering material for the next literary magazine. I’m entering contests and submitting poems (and getting rejected regularly). I’m working on a workshop about haiku/renga and researching poet laureates for a speech I’m giving at the end of April (National Poetry Month). I am creating.
I’m not finishing.
It’s the danger of hypercreative energy. And yet I’m still enjoying this surge because it’s been so long since I’ve felt creative at all. I’ll find a balance. Until then, I will go in as many different directions as I possibly can. All at once.
If I connect the dots and draw the lines right, maybe it’ll look like a star.
Banned books available right now in my store. Local author books in the background. Guess which one I’m most excited about selling?
There’s a list making the rounds of social media right now of “banned books”. Yeah, it sucks that such a list has to exist. We don’t live in Utopia. But are those books going anywhere? Will you ever have a really difficult time finding a copy of The Catcher in the Rye or The Harry Potter series? Probably not. (Even though J.K. Rowling has managed to piss off just about everyone.)
Why is this?
One simple reason. We may not live in Utopia, but we don’t live in Dystopia, either. Banned books are an effective tool employed by libraries and booksellers. There is no easier way to get your book on the bestseller list than to have it publicly banned. Human nature prompts us to immediately rush out and find out why those books were banned.
There are exceptions to this rule. When six Dr. Seuss books were withdrawn due to “hurtful and wrong” imagery, I had a hard time deciding how to feel about it. The reason for this can be found in And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street: “…a Chinaman who eats with sticks…” You might think that would be harmless, but I knew. I spent a large portion of my childhood with an image of Asian people wearing weird pointy hats and eating noodles with “sticks”. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to appreciate the beauty of Asian culture. And the fun. I’m a big anime and manga fan, and I’m listening to K-Pop right now thanks to my much less culturally insensitive daughter. Someday I hope to visit Japan, South Korea, China and anywhere else that will allow a humble American.
Yes, those Seuss books are mostly off the shelf or on sale on e-Bay for hundreds of dollars. But what happened to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind when our “woke” culture wanted to cancel it? It hit number one on the Amazon bestseller list. You can still find it on Amazon, by the way. And the N-word has not been removed. Same for Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And everybody knows about the success of another “banned” book, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. For the most part, there are no bonfires of these banned books, and even if there are, you can’t burn digital copies and more copies are printed of most of them everyday, anyway.
That’s why when I get requests to feature banned books more prominently in my store, I have to admit I don’t have very many of them. They’re sold out.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over my many years as a writer, it’s that I don’t always want what I need. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past two years as a bookstore owner, it’s that I can provide what indie writers need…even if it isn’t what they always want.
Brick-and-mortar bookstores are sometimes a distant dream for writers. We all wish to have our books on the shelves at a bookstore. We’d love to have that happen automatically. Publish a book, get it on the shelf. But except for virtual shelves, this is a sometimes unreachable dream. Even if you happen to have a “local” brick-and-mortar in your community, if you walk in a lot of times you’ll find the same thing you find in large chain bookstores, and, too often now, wildly discounted big box stores.
And these local bookstores often have restrictive guidelines and requirements for carrying local indie authors.
What writers need is a home for their books. A place they can be on the shelf. Surviving as a bookstore in today’s world of fruit and kindling beamed right to your phone can be difficult. Surviving as one voice shouting in a room full of other people can be even harder. Local bookstores and local authors need to work together to accomplish what they both need: more local authors willing to sell their books on consignment instead of expecting local bookstores to order them along with James Patterson’s latest—and more stores willing to give local authors a chance to see their books on the shelf.
I was in one of those “million books” type stores a few weeks ago (don’t judge me!). I took a peek at the Local Interest section. I was shocked to see “local” interests like the Blue Ridge Parkway…in Virginia! But the worst was a book about lobster fishermen in Maine! That’s what passes for local interest when the folks who order your books don’t live locally.
I’ve been in other small, local bookstores as well. They definitely try harder to maintain that local flavor. But once you start ordering new books, it’s an easy slide to devoting more space to Stephen King and Clive Cussler than the local authors who walk in off the street. Bestsellers are bestsellers for a reason. Name recognition. And a poetry book by local poet Michelle Garren Flye isn’t going to hold up very well when it’s sitting next to Amanda Gorman’s latest— Okay, there might be more reason than just name recognition for that…I love her!
But you get my point, right, authors and booksellers? Work together. A very famous “local” author (Nicholas Sparks) once told me “the cream rises to the top.” I think he meant that as encouragement. I’m taking it as heartfelt advice. My store is the churn. Readers do the churning. The local authors who end up on my “Bestselling Local Author” table are the cream.
We need more churns and authors willing to sell their ingredients for a percentage of the take.
What local bookstores need: a good local author section. What they want? A bookstore cat as great as Derby! (Photo by Michelle Garren Flye, local author and poet…and bookstore owner)
Sometimes life just decides to take a bite out of our lives, our happiness, our capacity to feel joy. That was my 2021.
I’m trying to fight back by leaving the loss of joy behind me with the change of the year. But I can’t help looking back. Even as I know that’s not where joy is going to come from.
There are many reasons I can’t stop peeking into the rearview mirror of life. Unresolved issues. Unspoken words. A plethora of both unwarranted and earned emotions.
But as I steal glances into my recent past, I see some bright spots, too, even if they were tinged with the grey of all of the above.
Becoming the Heart of the Pamlico Poet Laureate
Earning some much-deserved recognition for my bookstore (check out the January 2022 issue of Our State Magazine!)
Publishing two illustrated poetry books (UnSong and 100 Warm Days of Haiku) and two issues of The Next Chapter Litearary Magazine
Deepening friendships and making new ones
Learning (through necessity) I can do more than I ever gave myself credit for—and enjoying it!
It’s impossible to know what’s coming in 2022. If there’s one thing the past two years have taught us, it’s that. But I’m choosing to believe that whatever is in my rearview mirror, joy is still out there for me. Somewhere on the horizon ahead.
Us artsy types have a hard time owning our talents. It feels like bragging. So we wait for others to validate us with reviews or compliments. But those waits can be a long time coming because those who aren’t artsy aren’t necessarily going to notice us.
That’s why authors have such a hard time with promotion. (Nobody wants to hear me talking about my books all the time. It’ll just get on their nerves.)
That’s why artists can all too often be convinced to give away their work. (I’m just happy it’s going to a good home and will be appreciated.)
It’s not fair, you know. Nobody asks a doctor to provide free medical service because it’s what they’re good at and doctors would just laugh if they did. Because it’s a business they’ve worked hard to be a part of.
Well, so is art. So is writing. So are any number of other creative ventures. At least, we’d like them to be.
Someone once compared my style of graphic art to an adult coloring book. And I let them. Well, no more. Because it’s more than that and I’m determined to own it. To demonstrate that I’m giving you the original picture I traced onto the iPad and the final product. I’m calling this one Truth.
“Truth” on left. Original photo on right. This illustration will be in my next book of poetry. Copyright 2021 Michelle Garren Flye.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 